


Lead Soprano in a Junkman's Choir

by APgeeksout



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s06e11 Appointment in Samarra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-06
Updated: 2011-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:30:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title snagged from Tom Waits' "Come On Up to the House"</p>
    </blockquote>





	Lead Soprano in a Junkman's Choir

**Author's Note:**

> Title snagged from Tom Waits' "Come On Up to the House"

Death sweeps away from the low-slung cot with a courtly nod on his way through the doorway and back to his own plane, and before Bobby’s skin has stopped trying to crawl off and hide somewhere like a wounded dog, Dean is kneeling at his brother’s side, fingers clumsy in his hurry to loosen the strap around Sam’s wrist.    

He’d built the safe-room on a lark.  Or, much of a lark as a man could go on, knowing what was coming.  Knowing the littlest bit of what was coming, anyway.  Because he sure as hell hadn’t known it’d wind up being a prison more often than a foxhole.  Or that for most of the time John’s boys spent inside it, one of them would be in restraints.

Sam’s quiet, now that no one’s rooting around inside him.  Just breathing fast and shallow, eyes skittering around the room, lighting on the open door, his bindings, Bobby’s own face, Dean’s.  He screws his eyes shut and makes a thin sound, like Rumsfeld with a thunderstorm blowing in.  Makes Bobby’s heart constrict in his chest, even before he catches the look it puts on Dean’s face.  

“Sammy?”  

The hand that Dean has freed fists itself into the fabric of his shirt, keeping Dean close, anchoring them both, Bobby figures.  Ignoring the voice that suggests that a little longer in time-out wouldn’t hurt the boy, he pushes away from the wall and goes to work unfastening the rest of the restraints, so they won’t have to break Sam’s grip before they’re ready.  

“What did I do?” Sam whispers, turning confused eyes toward his brother, even as his empty hand comes up to press against his temple, his forehead, his eyelids, the familiar gestures of a kid used to crippling headaches.  His eyes squeeze shut again, and it’s only after Dean swipes trembling fingers over Sam’s face and into his hair that Bobby realizes he’s started to cry.  

He’s a little ashamed to find Sam’s tears such a welcome sight.  Still, having seen the untouchable, predatory competence of the last year and change - having the goose egg and rope burns of an hour ago - it’s a relief to see some sign of the boy he used to know.  A Sam who gets worn down, and who reacts with a slew of questions aimed at his big brother.

“There’s so much...” Sam’s eyes are open again, wide with horror and confusion. “I don’t...”

“I know, man.”  Dean’s hands have settled over Sam’s own, stilling them with that fierce tenderness that’s been taking Bobby by surprise since the Winchester boys really were just boys.   “We’ll sort it out later.  For now, let’s try to sleep some of it off.”  

Sam nods unsteadily.  He’ll do whatever Dean suggests, so long as he says it in that soft, level tone.  Bobby’s seen it before, though it usually takes blood loss or opiates or both to get the boy so cooperative.  John was never able to tease that kind of compliance out of Sam.  Eventually quit trying, handed that responsibility over to Dean along with bedtime stories and afterschool snacks.   

“Upstairs,” Dean adds, tearing his eyes away from Sam long enough to throw out a pleading glance that says _I can’t leave him down here again_ loud enough to break an old man’s heart.  

It takes some doing, getting Sam on his feet and in motion.  He’s mostly deadweight and barely with them by the time they reach the  junk room on the first floor, and as they lower him onto another narrow cot Bobby finds himself once more reflexively thanking that long-winded, double-crossing, thoroughly-dead demon for the use of his legs.  Doesn’t think he’ll ever stop feeling that misplaced gratitude whenever something reminds him that his body is whole and sturdy for the time being.  

He helps settle Sam under reasonably clean sheets and leaves the brothers to themselves, their hushed tones but not their words following him into the hall.  He’s beat, the bruises and aches he’s earned tonight just beginning to tell on his body, but by the clock in his study it’s still early.  There’s time enough to get some food into Dean before he falls over, and the thrum in his veins - not adrenaline anymore, just vanilla worry - tells him he won’t sleep just yet anyway.  

So he takes some aspirin and starts a fresh pot of coffee and melts a chunk of butter in the biggest skillet for grilled cheese.  Comfort food, fast and greasy and hearty.  Karen used to joke that their babies would grow up fat and happy on his dinners and her baking.  Whenever he cooks for someone else in their kitchen, he remembers her saying so, and how he wanted her to be right all the way to his bones.  

Maybe he’s more tired than he thought, or maybe it’s because he’s remembering the way she looked, slicing into a perfectly browned pecan pie on the last day she was really herself, but either way, Dean’s at the coffeemaker, pouring them each a mug before Bobby realizes he’s got company.  

“Whiskey’s in the usual place,” he says, as he turns two crispy sandwiches onto a plate for Dean and another for himself.  

Food’s on the table when Dean brings the bottle back in from the study and adds a slug to each cup.  He drops into a chair and scrubs a hand over his face, looking about as grey and wrung-out as the dishrag in the sink.  

“Hell of a day,” Bobby offers, taking a sip, savoring the warmth and the kick.  

Dean folds his hands around his mug and studies the food on his plate disinterestedly.  “Yeah.  Shit.  I’ll help you put things back in order before we clear out.”

“Clear out?”

“Yeah.  I mean, Sam is pretty out of it right now, but I can probably put him in the car, get us on the road in a couple hours.”

“And drive the both of you straight into a tree?  Even if you were fit to drive, where do you need to be in such a damned hurry? Eat until your head’s on straight enough to talk  sense.”  He takes a bite of his own sandwich to set an example.  Salt and fat and melted cheese go to work on his empty belly and black mood almost immediately.  

“You’re telling me you want Sam around?  Even after what I walked in on?”  Dean hunches forward, eyes downcast - more backhanded mutt than capable hunter for the moment.  “‘Cause I could barely have him in my space after my Edward Cullen phase, and I really do believe he was sure I’d survive.”  

“Boy, I’m still on my feet.  Or I was before I sat down to the very good damned food that’s getting cold while we yak,” he adds, anticipating the smartassed remark, even though he figures Dean doesn’t have the heart to follow through with it tonight.  “I’ve lost both you idjits more times than I’m inclined to count without opening a fresh bottle.  When I’m tired of looking at your ugly mugs, you’ll know.  Until then, you’re gonna park your asses here until you’re both in condition not to get eaten by the first Yorkie you run in to.”

“Yes, sir,” Dean says, blinking rapidly and tipping his cup toward him in a salute.  

“That’s more like it.”  He picks his own sandwich up pointedly, pleased when Dean follows suit.  

They eat in silence for a few minutes.  Dean makes quick work of his first sandwich and good headway into the second.  Bobby finishes his coffee, pours a couple fingers worth of whiskey into his empty mug.    

“Bobby? Thanks,” Dean says, meeting his eyes again.  

“Nothing to it, kid.  Secret’s melting the butter on the stove and dipping the bread in, instead of spreading it on cold,” he says.  

Dean drains his coffee cup, and they both pretend they’ve been talking about nothing more important than the arcana of grilled cheese sandwich-making all along.

 

 

The days that follow run by the way they usually do.  Mornings, when the house is cool and bright and still around him, he translates.  This month he’s been digging through some Hungarian witch lore for Julie.  

All day through, there are the phones: verifying the employment and security clearances of completely invented federal LEOs, reeling off charm ingredients and banishing spells, arranging the delivery of certain fetishes and remains he’ll hold for safekeeping.  Selling the odd transmission or truck hood or car door.         

A couple of evenings find him drinking with an off-duty Jodie Mills.  Her son would’ve had another birthday coming up soon, and she needs to talk to someone who’s felt it too.  Bobby doesn’t mind: bartender and grief counselor and innkeeper are all hats he’s worn before.  Plus, Jodie’s good people.  And not just because she keeps looking the other way when Rufus blows through town.  

The Winchesters have holed up and healed up with him so often over the years that their presence folds into his routines easily enough.  He looks in on them between his other little jobs.  

The first morning, he peeks into the junk room and finds them both asleep.  Out hard.  Sam doesn’t seem to have stirred at all from where they dropped him.  Dean is mostly sitting in a chair, but has also twisted sideways, so that his head is pillowed on the thin mattress and one hand snakes out to rest on his brother’s knee.  Hurts an old man’s back just to look at him.     

He airs out the spare bedroom upstairs, the one with the huge four-poster bed that fit all three Winchesters, once upon a time, and he and Dean help Sam zombie-shuffle up to it later that day.   

He keeps a pot of broth simmering on the backburner - a few sips when he can manage it will keep Sam going until he’s conscious enough to get some real food in him.  Meantime, he fries a pound of bacon every morning, leaves the leftovers in the fridge, where he knows Dean will snag a couple of strips every time he passes through the kitchen.  He might wind up with a case of cholesterol poisoning, but the boy’s not about to starve on his watch.  

Mostly, Sam sleeps, catching up on the year’s worth of rest that he missed.  Bobby never sees him lucid in those early days, but Dean says that he surfaces in the hour before dawn, long enough for them to trade a couple of questions and answers.  This way, they learn that Sam remembers things from his life before, things that make him Sam.  That he has a fuzzy blank where his memories of the cage would go.  That he’s got some all-too-clear recollections of the past year and a Sam-sized helping of guilt to go with them.  

“I tell him I don’t need him to be sorry, but he just keeps trying to apologize.  I don’t know what to do with it,” Dean confesses one night, stretched out along the porch steps with a beer, watching Bobby mend little rips and reattach lost buttons on the tidy pile of workshirts lying next to his rocker.

With a look, he dares the kid to comment on his handiwork.  “I imagine he doesn’t either,” he offers.  “You boys’ll have to figure it out together.  Won’t be the first time.”

Dean gives one of those not-really-a-laughs that he perfected before he learned to shave.  “Figures.  Just once, I’d like a fucking diagram to put us back together with.  Step by step.  No pieces left over at the end.”        

“Well, I got some new books in yesterday.  Let you know if I run across anything like that.”

Dean mutters a few lively curses into the twilight, nearly hiding his crooked smile, and Bobby soaks up the gratitude and affection he recognizes in it.  

 

 

Sam comes back to himself steadily, eventually managing to string hours of consciousness together at a time.  He joins Bobby and Dean at the table for mac and cheese, chili, the hot dog casserole that Bobby remembers those boys living on one winter in the early ‘90s.  Asks questions.  Responds to his brother’s ribbing with the dry wit that he never caught the rhythm of without his soul.  Bobby realizes now that that should’ve been a sign, kicks himself for missing the clue even as he was missing Sam’s sense of humor.   

Sam doesn’t spend the whole day in the bedroom anymore, but he still tires out easily.  If the bed is empty when Bobby looks in, then he often finds the boy in a rocker on the porch, dozing in the sunlight with his hood pulled over his head and a lap full of the stray cat Dean’s been sneaking bacon to when he thinks no one’s looking.  

The steadier Sam seems, the more space Dean gives him, tinkering on the wrecks, running errands - some days he even goes as far as Sioux Falls to pick up groceries or packages at the post office.  Bobby can’t tell if it’s relief or pure nervousness that let him give in to his cabin fever.

Sam gives Bobby a wide berth when the three of them are together and keeps himself scarce when Dean’s not around.  He lingers on the porch when Bobby’s puttering in the study.  Never ventures into the study at all, even long after boredom would usually have driven him to offer some help on the research.  The kid always was perceptive, and he must feel that Bobby’s ill at ease with him under foot, even if he keeps insisting they stay.  It makes him itch a little in his own skin, realizing he might be the kind of man who’d keep somebody close just to push him away.  

 

 

One afternoon, he sends Dean out for beer and coffee filters and twenty pounds of food for the scroungy damned yellow cat that keeps slinking in between his feet when he opens the back door.  Sam moves through the house like the skilled hunter he is and has taken up his perch in the rocker before the Impala’s even out of the driveway.   

“Shit,” he mutters, pushing aside the bills he was going to pay this afternoon.  Neither of them have been children for a long damned time, and he’s let this fester long enough.    

He steps onto the porch and bites back the command to stay the hell put that leaps into his throat when Sam automatically moves to vacate the area.  

“How does breakfast-for-dinner sit with you?  Eggs, fried potatoes, sausage gravy?” he asks instead.  

“Sounds great,” Sam says, standing awkwardly, broad shoulders slumped, hands shoved deep inside his sweatshirt pockets.  He looks like nothing so much as the sheepish 10-year-old Bobby remembers, trying so hard not to get in anyone’s way.  

“Ok, then, you’re on K. P. duty.”

“Yeah?” he asks.  The kid’s giving him an out, a chance to keep sulking if he wants it, and Bobby doesn’t know whether to hug him or to knock him upside the head.  He’s probably about due for either one.    

“Yeah.  And those potatoes aren’t gonna peel themselves, so you’d best get your narrow ass into the kitchen.”  He goes back inside and doesn’t have to look to know that Sam’s following.  

Sam’s smile as he settles in with the bag of potatoes and a small, sharp knife is shaky, but real, and Bobby lets him work in silence for a while.

When Bobby starts the sausage to browning, the cat slinks in to investigate.  “What do you want?” he growls at it halfheartedly as it loops itself around his feet, purring loud enough to be heard over the sizzle of the skillet and the wet scrape of Sam’s knifework.    

“Dean’s been calling him ‘Ziggy Stardust’,” Sam offers.  “Now that he’s got a name, he probably wants it all.”  

“Little shit will probably get it, too,” Bobby says ruefully, dropping a half-cooked morsel at his feet.  

“Knows a soft touch when he sees one.”  

He throws a cheerful obscenity over his shoulder and smiles.  

“It’s good to have you back,” he says after a while, waiting for the bacon grease to heat for the potatoes.  “Even if I don’t exactly act like it.”  He pulls the last two cold beers from the fridge and turns to face Sam.  Only a coward apologizes to an iron skillet while the man he’s done wrong sits six feet away.    

Sam twists off the cap with a grateful glance.  “No.  I get it.  I mean, I remember all the stuff I did... after.  Dean keeps saying that it wasn’t me, but that’s not right.  The part of me that thought they were all great ideas, that kept going no matter who got fucked up along the way-” he stops to take a long drink.  “That was always in me.  It’s still in me now.”  

“The part that’s making you feel like hell now, the part that your brother fought so hard to get back, is there, too.”

Sam’s face twists into a sad smile.  “You’re right, I know.  I’m just,” he gestures helplessly, “mad at myself and I don’t know what to do about it.  If I’m telling the truth, it’s been easier, having you angry at me too.”

“Well, hell, if it’ll help you get your head on straight,” he trails off and lets a wicked smirk spread over his face, waits for it to pull one corner of Sam’s mouth up into an answering smile “I could probably find a few choice words for you, about trapping me in that fucking closet.”  He expands on this theme for a couple of minutes - loud, exaggerated, and in three separate languages - before Sam finally erupts with a strangled burst of laughter.  

“Oh, man, I know!” He hides his face, about half shame, half hilarity, Bobby figures.  “Of all the places, right?” He takes a breath and sobers again.  “Really, Bobby.  I am sorry.  You’ve always done so much for us.  I don’t know what we would have done if Dean hadn’t stopped me when he did.”

“I know you’ve got regrets.  So do we all.  It’s part of being a whole person.”  He lets Sam chew on that a while, gets up to push some chopped onions and Sam’s mountain of careful, thin potato slices into the waiting skillet.  “You really want to make it up to me,” he adds, “you can start by taking a look at that chunk of Aramaic that’s about ready to grow roots on my desk.”  

“Deal.”

The crunch of tires on gravel carries in through the screen door.  Dean arriving just as the food is ready, using that sixth sense he’s always had about a hot meal.  “Give your brother some time,” he adds while it’s still just the two of them and the cat.  “He’s too grateful to get mad just yet, but you’ll piss him off eventually.”

“You think?” he asks, sounding oddly hopeful, as Dean crosses the threshold, hands full of groceries and a sunshine smile on his face at the sight of the two of them so companionable.  

“If you can count on one thing, I reckon that’s it.”

Sam tips his nearly empty bottle toward him.  “I can think of at least one other,” he says, then drains his beer and rises to give his brother hell about his cat food selection before Bobby has to embarrass either of them with a reply.  
 

 

In the end, they’re ready to leave long before he’s ready to see them go.  It’s been a long time since the house was so full.  Longer yet since everybody in it was mostly healthy and so close to happy.  

But there are things on earth - and in Heaven, which Castiel can’t tear himself away from for more than a moment these days - that need doing, and they’re John Winchester’s boys to the core.  So a frosty morning finds them loading up the car, progress hampered by the yellow cat who keeps insinuating himself into the Impala’s trunk and backseat.

“You know, I was kidding about making you take the mutt with you,” he says, watching Dean scoop the furball into his arms, “but it looks like he took it right to heart.”  

“Zig, you take good care of Bobby while we’re gone,” Dean says, handing the cat over to him, and he’d be full of shit if he said he wasn’t gratified to have the thing snuggle against him with a satisfied rumble.  

He gives Dean a cuff on the shoulder.  “You’re just lucky I never could say no to a stray.”  

He sees Sam, standing uncertainly a few feet away, and moves to pull him into a quick, one-armed squeeze.  “You boys take care of each other.  I don’t want to see you back here any too soon.”

Even the cat would know he doesn’t mean it, but it’s one of the perks of seniority that neither of them calls him a liar before they put the road underneath them again.

 


End file.
